My Jihad is Perhaps Not What You Think

This week a group of American Muslims has launched a campaign called  My Jihad . They are asking, My Jihad Is . . . Whats Yours? Their mission is taking back Islam from Muslim and anti-Muslim extremists alike. They are placing their ads on buses, starting in a few major American cities, and spreading their message through social media.

Their campaign seeks to share the proper meaning of Jihad as believed and practiced by the majority of Muslims. They define jihad as: An Islamic concept that means to struggle against barriers and odds in search of a better place. Jihad requires faith, courage, and perseverance. In the About section of their website they further explain, Jihad is a personal commitment to service, patience, determination, and taking the higher road, as such, it tasks us with confronting our own weaknesses, vices, and shortcomings; it is about taking personal responsibility.

They launched the campaign this week in Chicago, where the side of a bus now proclaims, My jihad is making friends across the aisle, whats yours? featuring warm pictures of very different individuals, presumably Muslims and non-Muslims, as friends.

Yesterday the My Jihad Public Education Campaign on Facebook page posted advice , soul food, for pursuing jihad al-nafs, a spiritual jihad or jihad of the soul. They recommended it should include six components: 1) silence, 2) isolation, 3) fasting, 4) night prayer, 5) thikr, 6) undo the defects of our soul (anger, envy, arrogance), with thikr, or dhikr, being the act of remembrance of God.

In an ad on their website a young woman in a cheerful long-sleeved pink shirt wearing a headscarf and lifting a barbell announces, My Jihad: Modesty is not a weakness. —Whats yours?

These American Muslims are living out the best of religious freedom. Practicing their faith, engaging in the public square, and freely voicing their perspectives in intra-faith debates. Religious freedom allows space and Constitutional protections for mainstream believers to counter violent extremists.

And along the way they are reminding me of some things I myself might do well to devote some effort to: fasting, night prayer, and working on the defects of my own soul . . . plus some well-dressed weightlifting might help provide a boost in these dark days of winter and counter the calories of Christmas parties.

Jennifer S. Bryson , Ph.D., is currently a Visiting Research Professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA.